Alone Time

Last Saturday I was already out the truck and walking into my stand at 40 Acre Pines when it dawned on me that I was embarking on my first solo deer hunt, ever.  The thought of it was mildly stunning, in both that I'd not realized it to that point and that it was such a strange feeling.

The hunting of my youth was a very communal venture.  Up to dozens of people met up early in the morning with shotguns full of 00 buckshot and trucks full of excited dogs anxious to get into the woods.  We would be strung out over, sometimes, miles of dirt roads, a "shotgun length" apart, to listen with rapt attention as the drivers with their walker hounds, blueticks, and beagles roused the deer from their beds, hopefully towards one of us.

In hindsight it hard to believe that ever could have bored me, but a 16 year old does not look at the world as a 40 year old does.  Back then my mind was filled with a storm of other things I needed to do, most of which involved adventures with another voluntarily naked warm body.  Being stuck in one place in the woods for hours on a Saturday did nothing to help that.

All of my modern hunting experiences have been with at least one other person, either as a companion or a guide.  This evening I was going alone due to Gator Football, John was headed over to watch the game with some other friends.  I have only a very passing interest in football, but in this town you can't help but be immersed in it.  We aren't having a great year, and this last game wasn't going to help that.

The hunt itself was uneventful.  I sat alone with my bow and arrows and watched the evening pass until the end of shooting light, then walked back out.  No cooling carcass to deal with solo in the fading light, and I was actually fine with that.  The highlight of the trip was the fox squirrel I saw walking in, they aren't that common in areas like this as they prefer more mature forest.

Speaking of both alone time and mature forest, last Sunday I took a long solo dayhike in the Croom tract of Withlacoochee State Forest.  About a decade ago the World Wildlife Foundation named Withlacoochee SF #1 in their "Top 10 Coolest Places Youve Never Seen in North America".  It's lands hold outstanding examples of the real Florida.  My walk mostly took me through sandhill habitat, most of which was in riotous bloom.  I saw many fox squirrels.  Here are a few shots to compare and contrast with the degraded sandhill-turned-pine-plantation habitat of our hunting area.

Mixed-age trees, regularly burned, healthy and abundant native understory.

Fired up!

Lopsided Indiangrass, my favorite grass.  Seeing this makes me glad I've lived to see another October.

The bigger solo hunt is still to come though.  Next Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (actually beginning tomorrow as I write this) is the limited-entry muzzleloader hunt in Goethe State Forest that I drew a permit for this year.  The northern part of Goethe is about 45 minutes from our house.  I went over this morning and set up my tree stand, almost a mile from the nearest public access point.  I'm excited about the site I stumbled on, it has both a "funnel" where a bushy oak and a fallen tree channels a game trail and a nice big scrape the size of my desk top.  Getting there was a beautiful hike in itself, and I'm looking forward to observing nature from my stand a few times over the next three days.  I'm pretty sure I'll return to this area during the small game season and do some further exploring with my Marlin 60 slung over my shoulder.

PS:  Check out this excellent interview in Huffington Post with Holly Heyser (NorCal Cazadora)

From Field To Table: Report on the Wild Game Processing Class Offered by University of Florida Meat Processing Center

A few weeks ago I was in my favorite gas station/BBQ and breakfast joint/bookstore (well, it's owned by the son of a famous herpetologist, things often get a little mixed together in a university town) when I saw this flyer on the counter:

I thought Albert holding a steak on a fork was a nice touch.

I was intrigued.  Seems some people at University of Florida picked up on the micro-trend for classes such as this and wanted to see if anyone was interested in one here in Gainesville.  I know I was, since my experience with processing deer was limited and hog non-existent, so I sent and email and a check and signed myself up.

The morning of the class was rainy, but I got lucky and parked fairly near the building.  I was surprised by the number of other people approaching the building through the grey drizzle.  Chad Carr, Meat Science Extension, played host at the event and welcomed us each as we arrived and signed it. The turnout far exceeded my expectations as I estimated at least 70-80 people were milling around outside the auditorium.   The demographics were not especially surprising though, we did mostly consist of white males.  However, a few minorities were in attendance, as well as a reasonable number of women.  Many of the attendees were younger (it was at UF) but quite a few looked to be in the second half of life.  Later on I learned that at least a few had never hunted in their lives but were interested in learning.

I doubt that many other classes of this type had the facilities available to us that morning.  The University of Florida Meat Processing Laboratory is a full Federal (USDA- FSIS) Inspected meat processing facility designed to facilitate teaching, extension and research programs for the Animals Sciences Department.  The room superficially resembled any other teaching auditorium on campus, with stadium seating for around 100 students, but the overhead rails that curved in front of the blackboard and lead to the huge stainless-steel dutch-doors of a massive walk-in refrigeration unit belied the differences of the lessons learned here.  

I was surprised to find myself slightly queasy at both the thought of the thousands of animals that had been presented to thousands of students in this room and the very faint but unmistakeable smell of blood hidden beneath sanitizers.  It didn't take long for that feeling to pass as  Mr. Carr started us off with some background information about the aims of the course.  It seems he too had been taken aback by the large turnout, and was very enthusiastic for the chance to contribute to our education. 

A gentleman from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission then gave an informative talk about the hazards of game-borne illness, not the least of which was the possibility of being bitten by a tick piggy-backing (litterally!) on our quarry.  Seems the most dangerous in Florida may be brucellosis contracted during the processing of wild hog, and he warned to always take topmost precaution when handling their carcasses.

The FWC speaker also gave a warning about something looming on the horizon:  Chronic Wasting Disease.  They have a passive monitoring system set up in this state that involves testing road kill, other found carcasses, and voluntarily donated hunting kills.  Evidently a major vector for the spread of CWD is by captive animals transported to "high fence" ranches for canned hunts (yet another reason to dislike those businesses).  Florida definitely has a high concentration of them, some of which are uncomfortably close to our 40 Acre Pines site.  No evidence of CWD has surfaced in Florida, but it may be only a matter of time. 

Next came the practical demonstrations.  A freshly killed young male goat played the role of a deer carcass as two very knowledgeable assistant managers  gave a lesson on skinning and gutting.  One thing I learned is that it is not always necessary or even wise to gut an animal.  Sounds counter intuitive, but if you know the animal has suffered a gut-shot it may be better to glean cuts from the outside of the carcass (most of the usable meat anyhow) than to open the thoracic cavity and introduce the intestinal contamination to the exterior.  You do give up the flanks, organs, and tenderloins, however.

"You can do it all with this knife!"

Later on the same to guys partially disassembled a wild hog that had been captured and pen raised in preparation for this class.  Strategic use of meat marking ink simulated contamination from a bullet wound and a less-than-expertly done field dressing. 

 

 

I was surprised to learn how little lean meat was on a wild hog of this size.  Evidently they don't share the muscle-producing genetics of their factory cousins.  According to these guys, a 125 lb wild hog might only yield 20 lbs of meat.  Of course, you'll have all the fat you'll need, render for lard anyone?

Note the size of the loin vs. the cape of fat over them in that cross-section

The class ended up with a sausage and jerky making demo, which was somewhat interesting but made it look way too easy since they were using a $5000 meat grinder. 

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In other news, my beautiful old compound bow suffered a breakage during practice over the weekend.  Nothing catastrophic or explosive, but I had to talk to three bow shops before I found one that could fix it, due to its design differences with modern bows.  In a way it was a good thing, because I discovered a local pawn shop actually has a pretty nice archery pro shop, I would have never thought to check. 

I just called them and the bow is ready for pick up now.  John and I had planned on hunting this evening, but I don't find myself in the proper mindset today.  I'll see what he thinks when he gets back from his field job.  Only a few more days of either-sex archery though, next week its a few days of antlered archery then my weekend of Muzzle-loading in Goethe State Forest!  That will make a nice couple of posts, I hope.

I'll leave you with a couple of pics from my moonrise walk at my favorite local preserve (two square miles with no hunting season there, its hard to count how many deer blow at you as you walk the trails)

Wait, so what's that old rhyme? "Red touch black, good for Jack. Red touch yellow..." wait, what?
LOL, yep, I almost tripped over this one, but coral snakes aren't supposed to be that dangerous. I mean, they can kill you, but they aren't eager to bite.

The most Southern Gothic photo I've ever taken.  Quick, get it on the cover of a vampire-werewolf romance novel!

An Evening In The Pines

John and I met at the gate of our forty acre hunting woods and set out across the eastern edge of the property, our bows and arrows in hand, headed for the stands awaiting us.  The walk took us pass several small hardwoods scarred by antler scrapes from previous years, their bark already rounding over the edges of the wounds.  If a young hardwood survives its injury, one day no outward evidence of the distress will remain, just as the tree itself may long outlast any other evidence of the buck. 

The active scrapes discovered the week before, along with the scene of the photographic evidence, lie in the southeast portion of planted pines.  Our stands are there, spaced about 120 yards apart; John has a climbing model, I have a more conventional, if spartan, ladder stand.  We arrived about 5 PM.  A conversation with John's neighbor, an experienced hunter, gave us his opinon that the area's deer were most likely appearing just after sunset.  With GPS-empowered accuracy the time of sunset was determined as 7:08 PM, with civil twilight ending at 7:32.  Effective shooting light would certainly die out shortly before then.  

I mounted my stand as the last direct rays of the setting sun shown above the treeline, which suited me fine as I was generally facing west.  The thicker brush that covered the old house trailer site where we know deer have bedded lay about a hundred yards ahead of me, with the likely route to the feeder and scrapes nearby in my left front quarter.  I settled in for the show.  

Not to give the wrong impression, although this forty acre  block of young pines is seldom visited, it does not enjoy the silence of isolation.  Cars and trucks rushing by on the county road along the northern boundary were clearly audible, as well other random anthropogenic clatter.  Yet another testament to the adaptability of wildlife when faced with all manor of environmental pollution.  

Before very long a bank of clouds appeared to the northeast.  It advanced over us and produced a shower, short and gentle.  This was the first time I'd been out in a rainstorm in quite some time, since the majority of our summer rain here in Florida comes from thunderstorms that only idiots or tourists would stay out in.  The rain soon ended, barely enough to make my newly-purchased camouflaged suit damp. I hoped it may erase the scent from our trial.

The wind that came during and after the storm rocked the small pine that supported my ladder stand.  The sublime feeling of being strapped to a limber young tree, moving back and forth with the breeze, reenforced the attachment to nature that many hunters seek. 

Before long the clouds passed and the last rays of the sun could be seen through the pines across the adjacent pasture.  The distant sound of calling cows drifted through the woods.  A few squirrels decided it was time to come out and procure some cones to gnaw for pine nuts.  The evidence of prior feasts littered the ground below my stand.  Crows called to each other as they flapped over the crests of the young pines. 

A few small dead limbs, their sponge-like rotten flesh no doubt made heavy by the rain, crashed to earth from the young slash pines near sunset, upsetting the lengthening calms between vehicles passing out on the county road.  Once far larger trees occupied this land:  All evidence points to the historic existence of a Sandhill environment at the forty acre pines.  The widely-spaced Longleaf Pine, with leaning, bare trunks supporting  bonzai-like flat-topped crowns, would have towered over the savannah-like forest floor.  Frequent fires raced through the wiregrass understory, bringing rejuvenation and renewal to the low-growing herbaceous flora.  In October a bounty of wildflowers, yellow and purple and pink and white, would have been fueled by the previous year's ash.  Now the darkened, needle-carpeted floor yields only the white daisy-heads of the invasive Spanish Needle, who's spear-like seeds will soon develop and annoyingly attach to and pierce our socks.

The tree-obscured horizon gave no clue of the exact moment of sunset, but as the light faded a flurry of small, brown moths began to flit around my seated form.  Alighting on my bow, I believe they were drinking water from the droplets still beading here and there on the varnished wood.  I touched one gently with my left index finger.  It was not startled, but instead crawled up on my fingertip, were it remained for several minutes, its comrades still in motion all around us.

I let John make the decision to leave, since I would have gladly stayed until full dark when the waxing moon would have lit the way back, but he has a young family to attend to and needed to find his way home.  I heard him descend, and so I shooed away my lepidopteran entourage and climbed gingerly down to meet him in the enshrouding gloom.  

The deer remained as ghosts, a mystery, unseen in the night.

Anticipation...

A faint glimmer of hope illuminates my expectations.  After letting our hunting woods sit unvisited for about two weeks, checking the game cam revealed a couple of visitors.

Pope and Young won't care much about them, but to me they are just fine.  They have been showing up intermittently, probably bedding down under the overgrown holly bushes at the old trailer site.  We only have night photos so far, but that's actually in line with the feeding predictions (however they come up with those).  They've established a scrape line leading to the feeder, and a bit past it, consisting of the most textbook scrapes you'll find.  About 30 yards past the end of the scrape line and off to the side now sits this:

It feels kind of exposed, but that's the nature of the area, 15 year old pines with scattered underbrush isn't ideal.  I had to take a segment off of the ladder because, honestly, I'm afraid of heights and I knew I'd never feel comfortable with my head 17 feet up.  12-13 feet is just fine though, funny how big of a difference a few feet made psychologically.

I'm going out with my bow Thursday evening after work.  I'm still not 100% confident with the broad heads (they tend to waver more than the field points) but this is mostly for the experience, as I've said before I'd need a perfect shot to try to stick an arrow in a deer, and there is a lot of season left, so there is no hurry at all.  Besides, rifles will be legal in just a few weeks.

Shocking New Game Cam Results!

They are:

Zero. Zilch. Nada.

That is all.

Sweet September.

Wow, I've really neglected this blog, but if there is anyone still out there I will be updating it more frequently.  Hunting season is coming up, and I've actually got a few recipe posts backlogged that I need to finish up and go live with.

My friend and hunting buddy John has located for us a new hunting ground, 40 acres that belong to his in-laws side of the family.  The old area we hunted last season (without success) isn't viable anymore since the owner's two Rhodesian Ridgebacks now roam freely within it, which is a shame since a huge field nearby happens to be planted in peanuts.  The habitat in the new area isn't ideal, almost all 15-20 year old planted pine with limited food sources and no water source, but there are some hardwoods on the perimeter, and the lot is surrounded by areas of farmland and more natural vegetation.  An asset is that it's hardly ever visited by humans except around the first of the year when it's swept for pine straw.  There is a mass of overgrown holly shrubs in the center of it where an old trailer site used to be, and there have definitely been deer bedding down there.  We found a few active deer trails leading into the area from the fields to the south.  I have a game cam out there now, I'll be curious to see what the pics are of.

Archery season starts here on the 17th of September, just two Saturdays from now.  On one of my posts I think I briefly discussed my reservations about bowhunting before, but with careful consideration I will likely participate this year.  I have two bows now, both older models I picked up in great condition on the cheap.  The both date from the '70's as near as I can tell.  I've been practicing with both using the 20 yard range I set up in the dry drainage ditch behind my suburban home (if we weren't in a drought, I guess I'd be wading).  The first is the Ben Pearson Mustang recurve bow with a 45# draw weight that I've mentioned previously.  It's of wood-fiberglass construction, like the classic Bear Archery designs.  I consider it my training bow, but its still really fun to shoot.  It put some pain in my shoulders the first couple weeks though, I probably should have started with a lower draw weight recurve at first but I made it through.

The newer-to-me one is a Darton Huntsman compound with 55# draw weight, mint condition.  The Huntsman is an early production model recurve, very dissimilar in appearance from the modern arrow-casting machines out there, but it sure is handsomer, if not a faster shot.  It is noticeably faster than the Mustang however.  The one-piece riser and limb section is composed of laminated wood and fiberglass, just like the recurves of the era.  My best group so far is about five inches at 20 yards, not horrible I guess, and I don't plan on ever shooting it at a living critter any farther than that.

The Darton Huntsman, before I had a peep sight installed, propped up next to my tomato cage quiver.

So, if or when the opportunity presents itself, would I actually attempt to send a broadhead into a deer, knowing what can happen if any of a hundred things causes the arrow to be off and it ends up a worst-case scenario?  I honestly don't know until the time comes.  As much preparation as archery requires, even at this level I already know it's all about how the situation feels, and I'd have to feel very right to try it.

But I'm looking forward to the chance to make that decision.

20 yard pin is still a bit high.

In other news, we took a trip to the Smokys last week, and had amazing weather (this was pre-Lee).  Here is a pic of a doe and her fawn browsing the vegetation at Mt. LeConte Lodge, at 6500+ feet the highest lodge in eastern North America.  Being in the heart of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, these two are separated by many miles and many years from the closest legal hunter, to them humans are a minor annoyance at worst, a source of (illegal) handouts at best.

Ellie May!  Come get your critter!

Roux, roux, roux the deer: Venison Gumbo

I've neglected this blog the last while.  Its the Dog Days of summer here in sunny FLA, and we have topped 100 degrees in real temperature on a few days.  I ran off for a solo camping trip in Great Smoky Mountains National Park two weekends ago, it was a nice trip but the afternoon thunderstorms caused me to spend more time in the truck that I wanted to.  Back at home, my garden had a good spring, lots of green bean, plenty of tomatoes and eggplant.  The corn and cucumbers were a bust, but that's no great surprise, they seldom do well in my yard.

We have had venison on a few occasions, but nothing I felt compelled to blog about.  We've had several good grilled cuts, and one horrific experiment with a blueberry wine braze.  I'd rather not discuss that episode.

It occurred to me last weekend I've never tried to make venison gumbo, and it seemed like a good idea.  I went ahead and selected a piece of backstrap, I think this was from Miss Catalina (need to use this stuff up, that's been in the freezer for 9 months now, still looked perfect though).  I diced it up, and browned it in oil in the pan

I took my time with the roux (yeah, sometime I've been known to hurry it).  It got a nice coppery brown, then I mixed in chopped red onion and green peppers.

Here is the meat, veggies (including some home grown tomatoes) and the stock.  I poured in a generous amount of Old Bay seasoning (I love that stuff) and two leaves from my laurel bay.

In at the end with the chopped okra, bought from one of my favorite farms.  Mine is still a long way from ready, since I waited until the potato beds were free to plant it.

Here is the final product, quite tasty if I do say so myself :)

Les' eat, y'all!

Couple of pics from my trip:

Young bull elk in Cataloochee Valley, GSMNP

Sunset from Cataloochee overlook, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.